Revisiting the Nature of Transformational Leadership: How Followers' Affect Matters

Abstract

The seven studies within this dissertation investigate the nature of transformational leadership. I consider whether transformational leadership is affective, whether it is multidimensional, and whether people perceive differences in the magnitude of transformational leadership. The first study tests the idea that the dimensions of transformational leadership have unique emotional valences. Studies 2, 3, 4, and 5 propose that followers’ ability to recognize emotion will affect their perceptions of transformational leadership; and examines whether individuals higher in emotion recognition are better able to identify and differentiate between the dimensions of transformational leadership. In Study 6, I manipulate the magnitude of transformational leadership to assess whether followers are able to perceive differences between small, medium, and large displays of transformational leadership. This study also tests whether follower emotion recognition and positive mood influence the identification of magnitude. Finally, Study 7 uses confirmatory factor analysis to test the validity of the multidimensionality of transformational leadership by examining its factor structure with followers’ emotion recognition and liking of their leader included in the model.